# AI makes cyberattacks easier, so Hinton spreads his savings

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/ai-makes-cyberattacks-easier-so-hinton-spreads-his-savings/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Geoffrey Hinton](https://realalpha.app/people/geoffrey-hinton/) · Geoffrey Hinton is a computer scientist and cognitive psychologist. · Nobel-winning pioneer of backpropagation and deep learning, now warning publicly about AI's existential risks.
- Host: [Steven Bartlett](https://realalpha.app/people/steven-bartlett/) · Host, The Diary Of A CEO
- Show: The Diary Of A CEO
- Episode: [Godfather of AI: They Keep Silencing Me But I’m Trying to Warn Them!](https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/), Jun 16, 2025
- Moment: 12:02 to 15:57 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/ai-makes-cyberattacks-easier-so-hinton-spreads-his-savings/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/?t=722

## Quote

> “So I **spread my money**, my children's money between three banks”
> — [Geoffrey Hinton](https://realalpha.app/people/geoffrey-hinton/) at [15:27](https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/?t=927) · The Diary Of A CEO

## Takeaways

1. He says cyberattacks rose twelvefold from 2023 to 2024.
2. AI can help clone voices and create more convincing phishing.
3. Hinton keeps his family’s money across three banks.

## About this segment

Geoffrey Hinton links AI to a sharp rise in cyberattacks and explains why he splits his savings across three banks. His personal precaution shows how he thinks through the consequences of a bank breach.

From “Godfather of AI: They Keep Silencing Me But I’m Trying to Warn Them!”, Jun 16, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[12:07](https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/?t=727) You talked about there's human risks and then there's... So I've distinguished these two kinds of risk. Let's talk about all the risks from bad human actors using AI. There's cyber attacks. So between 2023 and 2024, they increased by about a factor of 12, 1,200%. And that's probably because these large language models make it much easier to do phishing attacks. And a phishing attack, for anyone that doesn't know, is?

[12:37](https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/?t=757) It's they send you something saying, hi, I'm your friend, John, and I'm stuck in El Salvador. Could you just wire this money? That's one kind of attack. But the phishing attacks are really trying to get your logon credentials. And now with AI, they can clone my voice, my image. They can do all that. I'm struggling at the moment because there's a bunch of AI scams on X and also Meta. And there's one in particular on Meta, so Instagram, Facebook at the moment, which is a paid advert where they've taken my voice from the podcast.

[13:05](https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/?t=785) they've taken my mannerisms and they've made a new video of me encouraging people to go and take part in this crypto Ponzi scam or whatever. And we've been, you know, we spent weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and then emailing Meta telling, please take this down. They take it down, another one pops up. They take that one down, another one pops up. So it's like whack-a-mole. And then very annoying.

[13:23](https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/?t=803) The heartbreaking part is you get the messages from people that have fallen for the scam and they've lost 500 pounds or $500. And they cross with you because you recommended it. And I'm like, I'm sad for them. It's very annoying. I have a smaller version of that, which is some people now publish papers with me as one of the authors. And it looks like it's in order that they can get lots of citations to themselves. So cyber attacks, a very real threat. There's been an explosion of those.

[13:50](https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/?t=830) And these already... Obviously, AI is very patient, so they can go through 100 million lines of code looking for known ways of attacking them. That's easy to do, but they're going to get more creative. And they may, some people believe, and some people who know a lot believe that maybe by 2030, they'll be creating new kinds of cyber attacks, which no person ever thought of. So that's very worrisome.

[14:19](https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/?t=859) Because they can think for themselves and discover new ways. themselves. They can draw new conclusions from much more data than a person ever saw. Is there anything you're doing to protect yourself from cyber attacks at all? Yes. It's one of the few places where I change what I do radically because I'm scared of cyber attacks. Canadian banks are extremely safe. In 2008, no Canadian banks came anywhere near going bust. So they're very safe banks because they're well regulated, fairly well regulated. Nevertheless, nevertheless, I think a cyber attack might be able to bring down a bank. Now, if you have all my savings are in shares in banks, held by banks. So if the bank gets attacked and it holds your shares, they're still your shares. And so I think you'd be okay unless the attacker sells the shares

[15:13](https://realalpha.app/v/giT0ytynSqg/?t=913) because the bank can sell the shares. If the attacker sells your shares, I think you're screwed. I don't know. I mean, maybe the bank would have to try and reimburse you, but the bank's bust by now, right? So I'm worried about a Canadian bank being taken down by a cyber attack and the attacker selling shares that it holds. So I spread my money, my children's money between three banks in the belief that if a cyber attack takes down one Canadian bank, the other Canadian banks will very quickly get very careful. And do you have a phone that's not connected to the internet? Do you have any, you know, I'm thinking about storing data and stuff like that. Do you